Response to Intervention: Where Are We Now?
Teaching Exceptional Children Looks at Ten Years of RTI

The theme of the current (Spring 2007) issue  of Teaching Exceptional Children (published by the Council for Exceptional Children) focuses on Response to Intervention (RTI).  Guest editors Douglas Fuchs and Lynn S. Fuchs have compiled articles that summarize the many issues surrounding the Response to Intervention model of instruction. 

To understand the state of RTI, it is helpful to have an understanding of how it began.  In "Responsiveness to Intervention: 1997 to 2007," Renee Bradley, Louis Danielson and Jennifer Doolittle present historical facts about the origin and evolution of RTI over the past ten years and offer their opinions about the genesis of this important education innovation.

Bradley, Danielson and Doolittle write that the RTI model was borne of widely held concerns about the large number of students receiving late or inaccurate identification of Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD).  In 1997, during the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the NJCLD expressed its concern, shared by many in the education community, to the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). The OSEP response resulted in what has become known as the Learning Disabilities Initiative, or "LD Initiative."

The purpose of the LD Initiative was to ensure the accurate and timely identification of students with SLD by engaging researchers, educators and various stakeholders to develop improved procedures for SLD identification.  At the time the LD Initiative was undertaken, SLD identification in students was almost exclusively reliant upon the IQ-achievement discrepancy approach.  The discrepancy model has, in recent years, been referred to as the "wait to fail model," as it typically did not identify students with SLD until after they had experienced multiple years of academic failure. 

In the years following the onset of the LD Initiative, Response to Intervention gained momentum in some education circles as a viable alternative to the discrepancy model of SLD identification.  Much of the acceptance of the RTI model was due to the fact that RTI, if effectively implemented, would eliminate the established "wait to fail" method, allowing for scientifically-based instructional interventions at the first indication of learning difficulty.  The RTI model has been seen by many to be consistent with the education community's shift away from premature special education referrals and toward more classroom-based, high quality instruction, progress monitoring and tiered interventions prior to referring students to special education.

In 2001, OSEP addressed the lack of RTI-specific research by funding the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities (NRCLD), the purpose of which was to identify RTI models and create standard SLD identification procedures for use by individual states.  Much of the resulting research contributed to the removal of the federal requirement of aptitude/achievement discrepancy for SLD identification from IDEA during its 2004 reauthorization.  An amendment was subsequently added to IDEA in 2004, stating, "a local educational agency (LEA) may use a process that determines if the child responds to scientific, research-based intervention as a part of the evaluation procedures." [§ 614 (b) (6) (A-B, IDEA 2004)].

Though RTI-specific language in the 2004 IDEA reauthorization was minimal, it did set the stage for RTI implementation, while highlighting the need for clarity and standardization in SLD identification and intervention procedures.  In addition, as a response to the need for further guidance regarding RTI, the IDEA regulatory guidance was published in August 2006 and marked SLD evaluation and identification, the definition of RTI and parental notice among the key issues identified in the publication.

While the article co-authors acknowledged the numerous challenges that must be overcome before wide-scale RTI implementation occurs, they made certain to note that RTI has "created a critical mass of professionals willing to forge ahead despite the unanswered questions surrounding the details of implementation."  Notwithstanding questions about implementation practices and procedures, many education professionals and lawmakers agree that a tiered-model of instruction is a vast and necessary improvement over prior identification models.

Additional Resources:

Teaching Exceptional Children

LD News Response to Intervention Archive 
Every month in LD News, NCLD highlights the latest news, research and practices in Response to Intervention.

Response to Intervention section in NCLD's Infozone 
NCLD has compiled a robust listing of RTI information and support materials housed on the NCLD Web site, as well as other leading organizations.
 
A Parent's Guide to Response to Intervention   
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) includes a new provision that allows states and school districts to use high quality, research-based instruction in general and special education to provide services and interventions to students who struggle with learning and may be at risk, or suspected of having, learning disabilities. This NCLD guide offers an overview of the RTI process, describes how it is implemented in schools, and offer questions that parents can ask their children's schools.  
 
LD Talk Transcript: Reading and Response to Intervention (RTI): How Students Benefit from Multi-Tiered Instruction and Intervention
This April 2007 LD Talk featured experts Drs. Sharon Vaughn and Jeanne Wanzek, who answered questions about features of evidence-based reading instruction, the delivery of effective supplemental services, the importance of collecting and using data to inform instruction, as well as offering valuable information about the implementation of Response to Intervention (RTI).